


Footsteps On Intrastellar Sand

by Silverheart



Series: Forged in Light [1]
Category: Destiny (Video Game)
Genre: Backstory, Consensus Politics, Festival of the Lost, Gen, Kabr's Fireteam, Snapshots, grimoire
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-12-20
Updated: 2017-09-17
Packaged: 2018-05-07 18:51:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 5,049
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5467301
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Silverheart/pseuds/Silverheart
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A series of oneshots, ranging from snapshots of life in the Destiny universe to Grimoire entries, because I like to use words like 'paracausal' and torture metaphors, too.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. City Business 1

Cayde has always found the City proper to be a bizarre experience. 

It didn’t really help that his trips into it are always linked with that most bizarre of Vanguard duties, participation in the Consensus (working with Eris didn’t even come in at a close second).

“Maybe they’ll hear me out this time,” Shaxx growled, and Cayde wondered what exactly he’d done to Zavala for him to be stuck on the shuttle with Ol’ Grouchy Horns today. The Titan Vanguard and the Crucible Handler got on just fine, most days, but then there were the _other_ days. “It’s not like anyone cares about that old relic. It’s too broken for even Ikora Rey to pull something out of it.”

Cayde traded a look with his Ghost. Its eye flicked towards window with an optimistic blink, towards where the Hall of Consensus loomed closer and closer. Cayde nodded. The spirit of hope, his Ghost. He wondered if the other Guardians’ Ghosts did the same thing for them, or if his was special. 

The second. Shaxx would stop complaining so much if his Ghost was a cheerful, hopeful sort.

“I’m sure they’ll listen,” Cayde said, “You’ve been getting results, and that counts pretty damn much these days.”

Shaxx eyed him, probably with respect. Hard to tell with the helmet. “In the Vanguard’s book, Cayde. The Vanguard is not the whole Consensus, even if they’re the only worthwhile part of it.” The shuttle began its descent, and Shaxx seemed to glumly watch their destination. “Except for the Speaker, of course.”

The Speaker rarely said anything at these meetings, but what he said had always made sense to Cayde, in a sagely sort of way. Whether or not what he said was practically worthwhile…well, the Consensus kept the City at peace. 

“Just start with a proposal to have Saladin exiled again,” Cayde told him, unstrapping himself from his seat as the shuttle settled, “Nothing you’ve got could be more crazy than that. Everything else should go down real smooth.” 

The ramp lowered and he bolted as subtly as possible. Zavala strode very manfully out of shuttle next to theirs. Cayde waved, causing the man to slow just long enough for Shaxx to spot him, and then the Exo turned tail again, down one of the paths through the park that surrounded the Hall. His Ghost sparked into existence and danced happily in a circle. “Well done,” it chirped, flickering out again to Cayde’s…metaphysical side. Ikora had explained it once. He had needed a drink.

“That’s only the first part, if you’ll remember,” he muttered. A few civilians- Human, Awoken, Exo- glanced strangely at him, eyes dropping as they saw the Vanguard insignia on his armor. 

This here, these people, they were the second part. 

Before his time on the Vanguard, Cayde had both always concerned himself with the City and never had, like most Guardians. It was their mission and their lifeblood, yet its day-to-day existence was so divorced even from less serious things like the Crucible or the SRL that…that even the sky was closer.

This was a soldier’s lot, though, from time before the Golden Age, according to the murk of his own mind. It’d never been really any different for him, not since…ages and ages ago, now.

He scowled at empty air. Now he sounded like a War Cultist. 

He followed a meandering side path. He’d rather miss the opening ceremonies. A bunch of [PEACOCKS] strutting, all trying to one up each other to gain favor with those who had the guns and the Light to accomplish their goals. 

He passed a playground. Children laughed (or cried; one kid looked to have had skinned his knee, nothing to cry about, really), and raced around on what looked like a series of art installations. He knew its purpose, but it never really processed as designed just for kids.

Five adults of all races watched them play, watchful as hawks and pretty blatantly armed. Some of the kids were Human, some were Awoken, but all told there were less than a dozen of them, each more precious than an old vault full of Glimmer. More precious than a _hundred thousand_ old vaults full of Glimmer. 

And more alien than the Fallen, too. No children played on the Tower. Cayde wasn’t sure Guardians could have kids. They were—how _had_ that lunatic Warlock put it?—corpses infused with Light. He’d never even heard of a pregnant Guardian, not even in the most crackpot rumor.

The playground stilled and fell silent as he walked past it. The crying boy shut up and stood, wiping tears away on his sleeve, as if ashamed. The kid had a knife. They all did. The City was safe, and too cozy, maybe, too _far away_ , but the citizens knew they lived on the edge. Some of the caretakers might have been old enough to remember Twilight Gap, even. 

He stopped this time, like he hadn’t before. Maybe he was getting to be like Banshee. He cast a glance over the kids. They were weird, short and almost adult-like, their proportions all skewed. Cayde made himself look past that. 

He looked at the tiny hand resting on the tiny practical knife hilts, and he looked at the wide, shining, surprisingly stern eyes, and he nodded. “Stay sharp,” he said, and flicked a casual salute at them and their caretakers before moving on. 

He took a shuddering breath as he put a grove of trees between him and the kids.

“That was kind of you,” his Ghost whispered.

Cayde huffed out a laugh. “That was just the second step. Now onto the actual hard part.” He shook his head as he spotted the Hall’s steps. “I’d rather be on that Dreadnaught. Can you transmit that as part of the meeting notes? ‘Cayde-6 would rather risk horrible death at the hands of Dark abominations than sit around bored during politics that don’t do anything’?”

And his Ghost, the smart-ass, cheerfully announced, “Done!”

He was going to hear it for that one.


	2. City Business 2

No faction in the Consensus can ever be said to be moving against each other, though the personalities might. Mostly they just spoke at cross purposes, sometimes communicating by merit of dumb luck, usually not even talking about the same thing.

Cayde sighed and continued his doodle of Arach Percival-28, the latest Dead Orbit Consensus representative. The Exo was painted entirely white, except for forest of tall black spikes sticking out of his head. They looked like add-ons, meant to intimidate in that Dead Orbit sort of way. Cayde thought he looked ridiculous. He could say that because he had a horn sticking up from his head (he pulled it off though, unlike this guy).

Percival also wouldn’t shut up. He’d been at it for more than forty-five minutes. “— and so Dead Orbit respectfully requests a greater allocation of the spinmetal collection contract, as well as access to the caches of Hadium flakes possessed by the Vanguard.”

There was silence for a few moments. Cayde finally looked up from his desktop doodle (Ikora’s Ghost meanwhile nosed over and _erased_ _it_ ) to see that yes, the Arach was finally done, and that no one seemed to be awake enough to answer his request. He gave a mental sigh. “The short answer is no,” Cayde said, looking Percival straight in the eye, “And the long answer is also no.”

The Dead Orbit rep bristled, which the spikes did admittedly help with. “Why, may I ask?”

Cayde shrugged. “You may ask.”

Ikora shot him a sharp glare, but Cayde believed that honesty was a virtue and felt no guilt. Maybe a tiny bit of fear, but no guilt. “While Oryx is dead, the threat is not yet past,” she said, “We are not ready to reallocate the Vanguard’s resource stores to their pre-Oryx levels.”

The Arach crossed his arms. “The threat is never past, it seems.”

A small, slightly venomous smile graced Ikora’s lips. “And how little even Dead Orbit knows of it. On the _subject at hand_ , if you desire more resources, then take it up with the Guardians whose allegiance you claim. If you offer them more weapons like I’ve seen gracing the Crucible from time to time, I’m sure they would be happy to help.” 

The Arach said nothing and bowed his head, sitting back. Point to Ikora for not getting caught up in a war of philosophy. The factions needed their pledged Guardians, but they knew better than to trust them with their more…out of the box maneuvering. Only the well-fed and safe could truly pledge themselves to wilder ideas, right or wrong. 

“Indeed, as the Arach says, the threat is never past,” the Future War Cult rep said. He hadn’t caught the Awoken woman’s name, but she would be gone next time. The Cult never sent the same representative twice. Cayde had no idea why. “So we must move to destroy the Dreadnaught before another comes.” She held up a hand as both other factions and Zavala opened their mouths to shout her down. “There is indeed much to learn from it. But someone will naturally rise to take Oryx’s place, with that weapon at their disposal. Are we to worry about that as the Wolves rally? Are we to sit passively as an enemy heals at our gates?”

“We cannot!” Executor Torus-2 shouted, “Destroy the Dreadnaught and sacrifice the resources and knowledge found in it? Are you mad?”

“Indeed,” the Arach said, “You must be. It is likely impossible, and a waste besides, as the Executor says. It is certainly an interstellar vessel, perhaps even an intergalactic one.”

This was one of those communicating moments, a sign that the Consensus sometimes lived up to its name. Zavala cleared his throat thunderously. “As the representatives have stated, it would be waste. The Dreadnaught has given us many new discoveries, and more will undoubtedly come.” Not that the Consensus needed to know all of the discoveries the Guardians and Eris had reported. “Also, you should know, the Cabal has already attempted to destroy the Dreadnaught. They failed thanks to our efforts.” All three representatives looked vaguely scandalized. Opposed to the War Cult on principle, maybe? Not to the proposal itself. “If they had succeeded, most of the Solar System would be dust.”

Ikora Rey nodded. “Do not worry that there will be a replacement for Oryx, either. That…opportunity arose for the only ones capable of taking it. It was refused, a source of pride to all Guardians forever.” 

She was so calm while describing the refusal of temptation. Cayde envied her, because the image in his mind, of six brave men and women, battered and near-dead, turning their victorious backs on the dark crown they had outright won, made everything inside him shine with pride.

He knew by looking at the representatives that they wanted to ask why it was good thing to turn their backs on that kind of power. He pitied them for an instant in a strange way. They only knew that the Darkness was terrible, powerful, and would kill them if it could. They did not understand just how terrible, just how strange, just how corrupting, it was. They lived in a world of blindness that would make them damn themselves if they left the safety of the City walls. 

A damnation most Guardians avoided very day, out among bullets and horrors and rotting secrets. 

He guessed he was maturing as one of the Vanguard. He would have despised these people before. But now…he just pitied them. 

“Well, now that’s cleared up,” Cayde said, “Shaxx, you wanted to bring forward a proposal? Something about exiling Saladin? Again?”


	3. Across Time

It’s sometimes like a card game. A long card game, where the opponent is certainly cheating, and is also the dealer besides.

It’s a comfort that they haven’t simply stripped what they want from him.

Praedyth thinks that they can. Yet…yet there’s the fact that they _haven’t_. The fact that sometimes the door opens and he can say something. Maybe it’s another move in the game, but he wants it so desperately to be a slip.

(It’s not. It never is.)

He was never a very mystic Warlock. He remembers sitting in the tower, drinking with friends, while a band of dirtied Thanatonauts argued philosophy and metaphysics in a corner, the heavily armed hangers-on pretending not to listen, bonds all aglow.

He’d been happy, though, being happy among his brothers and sisters. The arguments, the mysticism…not for him. Work for the Cult, yes, because they made sense, but the rest…

“Anyone want another beer? Monarchy says they’ll buy, since we just blew up a ketch.”

Friends and Light and life and victory!

Kabr had come the next day, Osiris over his shoulder.

* * *

So how is it that a Warlock with no taste for mysticism and argument becomes the outsider looking in and looking out, the man who knows the Vex best?

Kabr had said:

“You know about the Vault of Glass?

Praedyth knew Kabr at a distance. He was a strong Titan, and more importantly, a smart one. But the man was aflame, as the Praxics said, all his emotions and passions boiling at the surface. Praedyth kept his eyes on the hand canon on the Gunsmith’s table. It wasn’t better than his own, but Banshee knew his craft well.

“Everyone knows about the Vault,” he said.

“Do you want to crack it?”

And this stands out, because he knows— _he knows!—_ the number he gave. “Without a team of at least six, we’d never stand a chance. It’d be suicide.”

Kabr waves a hand. “I just need one more.”

“Really?” One of the Vanguard, Osiris, was lurking, and not as subtly as he thinks. Praedyth knew he was listening.

He knew he’s always been a disappointment to that most mystic of Warlocks, too. A thwarted mote of potentiality.

“We have me and Pahanin.” The number doesn’t make any sense, and yet his memory says that it must have.

An insane asylum of a fireteam, Praedyth thought, but then there’s the Vault in his mind. He’s been to Venus. There’s beauty there, shattered and nearly eaten, but it’s _there_ , and Praedyth—poor Praedyth!—he dreamt of happy bright moments in dead places resurrected.

(He still dreams of it.)

So he knows there were four more, about as insane as the rest of them. Kabr, the relentless, he knows. Pahanin, muttering (he didn’t before), he knows. The rest are lost except in the most esoteric memory and deduction.

He agreed, and so, here he is.

* * *

Praedyth knows the Vex as no other does.

For the Vex, everything must be Known. If it is Unknown…then it must be made Known.

They’re studying him, watching, calculating. Predicting. He’s a specimen, a model of Guardian behavior. It took him a long time (and hardly any time at all) to figure that out.

The Vex can’t guess at Guardians. The Light—because Praedyth knows now that there was never anything special about him beyond his Light—is beyond their calculations.

It’s almost funny, he thinks as he sprawls next to his makeshift transceiver. The City clings on desperately beneath the broken near-corpse of the Traveler, every day at the risk of destruction. Its walls are assaulted, its resources scarce. It persists only by the lingering Light.

And that, all of that, is what the Vex cannot predict.

So there’s that; less than a hope, more than nothing.

Praedyth will take it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1\. Apparently Praedyth was a Warlock. I can't figure out how people know this. Maybe they're just deducing from the known composition of Kabr's Fireteam (Kabr, Titan; Pahanin, Hunter; Praedyth...leaves us with the Warlock. And then three people erased from time.) Or it was mentioned somewhere in something I can't find.


	4. Sisterhood

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was written during the run-up to Rise of Iron. Amara is the wife of Temper, the main character in Jailbreak.

Amara found the Reef off-putting. She didn't know why.

Old machinery was nothing new to Guardians, who fought with it, lived in it, and sought it out on a regular basis. But there was something about the machines of the Reef that wasn't only old, but also on the edge of dysfunction. On the edge of having been built to be dysfunctional.

There was also the flagrant racial prejudice and veiled sexism. Amara was grateful she was an Awoken, if as Citified as they got, and that Temper had been tasked with investigating some Devils back on the Cosmodrome. The disdain she from the Reef Awoken here as they looked at human or Exo Guardians, especially male ones...it pissed her off. If it had been Temper they treated that way, she'd have started a gunfight. 

Temper, she thought fondly, would have shoved his annoyance down and ignored it. Never was there a man more badly named.

Vrally had better have a good point to this, the lunatic. 

Amara, content that the air of the Vestian Outpost was breathable, threw back her hood and transmatted her mask away. Not all Guardians did that, she noted. A lot kept themselves faceless. The Reef was friendly only in the diplomatic sense. 

She sighed and stalked past the sleek guards and their monotone frames. The part of the Outpost open to visitors wasn't very big. Vrally especially should be easy to spot. 

Something clanged loudly but distant. The head of every guard shot up and the frames froze. Amara prepared to summon her mask again...then activity resumed as if nothing had happened.

How did people live like this? The City was no paradise, but at least you could trust the atmosphere to stay in place.

Reluctantly, Amara approached the corner given over to the Disciples of Osiris, the air bright with candlelight and heavy with incense. 

Vrally sat on a pillow there, in a lotus pose. Amara suppressed a laugh. The other Awoken woman was quite tall and bulky, both facts only empathized by her heavy purple armor, its edges glowing with yellow chroma. If she'd been standing, Amara would have spotted her as soon as she arrived. 

Amara stood in front of her, attempting to radiate impatience. Vrally's gold-shelled Ghost drifted behind her, its eye focused on them briefly as it kept watch. 

Tron, Amara's Ghost, flickered in existence and irritably went flying to the other one. He wasn't the most patient of beings.

Whatever he did or said had an effect, as the other vanished in the usual dusty wash of Light and Vrally opened her eyes. Tron went to hover at Amara's shoulder, vaguely defensive.

"I wondered if you would come," Vrally said, unfolding herself to loom over the Tower Guardian. Temper was taller than her, but not by much. Amara tried to recall if her hair had been mauve when they'd last spoken or not. "You are not fond of the Reef, I know."

Amara shrugged. "You said you have information I might find interesting. So here I am."

"You're becoming like that Titan of yours." The sneer was tucked behind the woman's ever-present affected calm, but Amara heard it anyway.

"Or vice-versa. It's been a long time since we fought together, sister." Whether or not they were really sisters was unknowable, but they felt like it. They'd come to the Tower together and worked together almost always from there. Running, gunning, flirting with the pretty Warlock boys...Vrally was not the same person. Amara wasn't, either, but she didn't think it was as big a change. "What do you have to say?"

Vrally scrutinized her as if she were some wise woman looking into a young fool's soul. It was ridiculous, and Amara crossed her arms as she waited. "The House of Devils has been digging into old vaults."

"They're Fallen, they always do that."

"With focus, now. I know you prowl Old Russia, and they've converged their efforts there. Something bad is coming, Amara. I thought you should know."

Amara sighed. Mysterious warnings were more common than dirt in this universe. "Something always is."

Vrally descended into her lotus pose again. "And it is always very bad. I just thought you should know, for your safety...and that of that Titan of yours."

Amara eyed her for a moment as she settled into her meditation. The years had changed them radically, and forged a gap as vast as that between the Tower and the Reef, but maybe their sisterhood had still survived it all.

"Thank you," Amara said, "I'll let Temper know you've developed a fondness for him." No reaction. "Keep in touch, Vrally." 

Time to go grab Temper and whoever she could scare up and undo the Devils' work, she supposed, and had Tron transmat her to her ship.


	5. An Old Grudge

"You had Guardians wake Rasputin," Saladin stated, "And save him from the Devils."

Zavala rubbed his temples. A wolf butted her head against his leg and he obediently scratched behind her ears. It was a pleasant contrast to the conversation he was about to have.

"We did." And it had been a collective decision, made in conjunction with the Speaker. "We need allies, Saladin."

The Iron Lord stared out over Felwinter Peak without expression. A small, ever-young part of Zavala squirmed in anticipation of the man's disapproval. 

"He slaughtered the Iron Lords. He would have unleashed SIVA if he thought it would serve his purpose."

"His purpose is survival, the same as ours."

"His survival may not necessarily mean ours." That hard gaze turned on Zavala. There were few the Titan Vanguard could name as his own heroes, and Saladin was one of them. His disappointment stung, in a way he didn't know anything could anymore. "Trust me on that."

"His enemies are ours. Has it occurred to you that he knew that SIVA was a threat and not an aid? That he was trying to stop you from unleashing it?"

"Yes," Saladin said-or growled, rather. Zavala did not dig into that wound. It was as tangled as SIVA tendrils and, despite Cayde's claims, he was no fool.

"The S.A.B.E.R., if nothing else, taught him we have a common enemy," he continued, "He begged for our help, Saladin."

A handful of Guardians came plummeting down from above, only one of them surviving the fall. He danced like a lunatic as the others had their Ghosts resurrect them. Young Wolves, indeed. Saladin quirked a very, very small smile, then turned fully on Zavala. "He did, I'll give you that. He isn't what he was. You enabled him, proved us useful. But only for now. You can't trust that old computer."

"Noted."

"Do you know where the name Rasputin comes from?"

"An ancient pre-Golden Age monk and political advisor." Ikora thought it interesting, and had lamented that Charlemagne hadn't been the surviving Warmind. 

"An ancient pre-Golden Age traitor. He manipulated and used a royal family until they were no longer useful, then arranged their destruction. He was also very hard to kill. I suggest you remember that."

"When it becomes relevant, I'll ensure it informs our movements."

Saladin gave a short derisive laugh. "Don't you listen to Rahool? It's all significant."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1) I have not heard all of Saladin's ambient dialog, so I'm not sure what he says about Rasputin, but this all based on what I do know. I'd appreciate any corrections about his attitude towards the Warmind. He's got a one-sided personal relationship with him (nothing is ever personal on Rasputin's end, except maybe with the Darkness and the Traveler), so I figured he'd have an opinion on the Vanguard's decisions.  
> 2) I imagine the Vanguard would visit their new outpost. It's strategically kind of a big deal. One of these days, I'll write about Cayde dropping by the Reef to have drinks with Variks...


	6. To the Lost

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Cayde decides drinking with Variks might be a good idea.
> 
> Some authorial influence of rum.

Well, Cayde thinks, what’s more unifying than loss?

He half loves and half hates being drunk (or whatever it is, technically, for an Exo). Nothing is caged. It’s both freeing and terrifying. He runs along paths bright and dark alike, whole and shattered, and all mired deeply in _loss_. You can’t reclaim what’s lost.

Which is why he _commandeered_ a Guardian ship and headed out to the Reef, to make good on a promise of even more maudlin days.

That Variks had purred ‘cerrrrrtainly’ to an offer of a drink means that Cayde is fairly certain this is a good idea, or that he at least has enough for his drunken brain to claim it’s a good idea. He’s not so dishonest as to pretend it might not be.

Hey, the Reef’s opened up to Guardians. The Wolves have been hunted down to nothing. This is a great idea!

He transmats into the Vestian Outpost to the distinct smell of everything mechanical. It’s more similar to the scents of the Tower than many might admit. There’s more here in common than not.

He makes his way over to Variks’ little hovel, right in front of the old gaoler-exile’s face. “Makin’ good on a promise,” he says to Eliksini (Fallen? Not Variks), waving a bottle of ether liquor in his face.

Variks’ four eyes narrow. No one ever know what that means. Amusement? Skepticism? Some alien emotion? Cayde, as a matter of professional interest, has been trying to decipher the alien for many years now and has yet to figure it out. Not that he tells anyone that. 

“I remember,” Variks says, “It is your Festival of the Lost, is it not?”

Cayde feels his drunkenness turn from merry to melancholy. “It is. The way I see it, you and I, we’ve lost a bit.”

“And you made promise to Variks.” He cocks his head in a way nothing from Earth would. An artificial arm leaves his staff and he waves him over to a table out of the way. “This way.”

They settle at the table, a hastily welded bit of junk, like just about everything else these days. Variks settled with a bizarre grace at the seat opposite Cayde. He hands the ether liquor to one of his organic hands. “Some of my Guardians found that in a ketch near Old Russia,” Cayde says, “Devils, I think, but Kings were there too, from the report.”

“Pah. Kings.” Variks uncorks the bottle and stuck one of the tubes from his breathing mask into it. His upper pair of eyes lazily slide half-closed; the lower two close entirely. “Ah. It has been some timmmme.” 

Cayde pulls out a flask and raises it in a toast. “To the lost,” he says, raising it.

Variks raises the bottle. “Yesssss. To the lost. They are many.” He drinks, Cayde guesses, and rests the bottle on the table. “Many.”

There are thousand questions to ask, about the Awoken and the Fallen and history. But none of it feels right, not now. “Do you ever…do you ever wonder what you could have done?”

“Always.” The answer is surprisingly quick. “Unceasingly.”

“’Unceasingly’” Cayde says, “Good word. Outside normal vocabulary.”

With just a touch of wry anger, Variks says, “I am a very good learner.”

“Not you.” Cayde slams back a bit of sweet burning whiskey. Or rum. It’s irrelevant at this point. “Just…it’s the right word for the holiday. Unceasingly we remember. Unceasingly we fight.”

“Ah.” The Fallen leans back, spreads his robotic hands. “Let me tell you something, Guardian. I have watched the Dark for a loooong time. I bear no answers but its hunger. But this…we cannot forget the lost. There must be value to their saaacrrrifice.” He slammed a metallic fist on the table. Cayde’s own hand aches in sympathy from the force of the blow, as much false-flesh as Variks own’. “There _must_.”

The pain hits Cayde deep, then. He can’t comfort the alien as he would anyone else he knew. There were no children playing in the City, no progress forged through fire and lightning and void. “Well,” Cayde said, pausing for particularly potent shot, “I can’t offer a lot. There’s only— “he gathers the crazy words, stupid and senseless and maybe worthwhile— “there’s only doing what seems right. Honoring what seems right when everyone says it doesn’t, holding the banner in the midst of the enemy horde…I don’t know. It’s something.”

“Yessss. Something. Ah, Guardian, lost things…lost without hope…survival and compromise and…”

“To the lost,” Cayde said, lifting his flask. Reverently, Variks clinked his bottle against it. “Now, always, in valor and truth and hope.”


	7. The Enemy Moves

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Tiny drabble-ly thing I've had laying around for awhile. With D2 out, I'd figure I'd post it before D1 fades away into the ether. Not sure it's truly finished, but there are D2 things to explore!

For a Guardian, the Golden Age always sits in the center of your view- when you aren't running or shooting or trying to figure out Vex puzzles or arguing with your Ghost. It dominates the universe in the most annoying way, a curiosity you can never sate.

Because the act of satiation might well kill you. For real this time.

It's the damn Martian skyscrapers that get me, them and the maybe-dead scrub that hints at a living world that this isn't, but was. I'm sitting on some outcrop of dust-riddled stone, waiting for the perfect moment to strike, just staring at them.

The report from the Vanguard is that the Cabal is marshaling to hit the Vex here, where they've got the foundations for one of their towers started. I expect the Vex to hit back just as hard, turning the whole area into a formidable little firefight. A perfect time for a Guardian to come out and play, taking down the tower foundations more surely than the Cabal ever could.

It would mark, by my count, the fifth time in three months this particular tower had been halted. The Vex have been discouraged by such efforts in the past. We Guardians are the break in the wall of their omniscience.

It also gives me a chance to continue working on enemy numbers, as you do. Whether or not it matters to the Vex, that's anyone's guess, but the Cabal are flesh and blood, here and now. Every dead legionnaire has to hurt. And I'm worth no few of those.

It's all very repetitive. They tell me Oryx's death may mark progress. They said that about Crota, too.

But Guardians, unlike the Vex, are impossible to discourage. Maybe that's because we don't operate on logic. We operate on hope.

Oh, and bullets.

The Cabal dropship comes sweeping across the desert, hovering low enough to kick up dust. Like the Cabal, it’s a big clunky thing, no subtlety, and slow. The Legionaries drop from it like overweight divers, taking a moment to survey their landing site before activating their jump jets.

They set up, taking position behind some rocks. The Cabal don’t tend to dig in like that. Legionaries moved forward behind the Phalanx shields or Colossi guns. But this is just a troop of Legionaries.

The Cabal are feeling their losses, then. I shift quietly, waiting for the Vex to show. They operated on a timetable, for some reason, and the Cabal had clearly been tracking it as well as we have.

The tiny star of a Vex portal flashes to life, the sound of reality’s structure being pulled part and rearranged ringing through the air. It warps something for me, and I see the Cabal shake their heads and ready to their weapons.


End file.
